Re: Bug#777643: general: possibly, some keyboard layouts should use U+22C5 DOT OPERATOR instead of U+00B7 MIDDLE DOT
Nikolaus Rath <Nikolaus@rath.org> writes:
> I'm curious, how do you type that [U+2026 HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS] in
> conviently?
GNOME and KDE have the IBus [0] “input method engine”, IME. GNOME by
default presents the IBus input method manager for allowing the user to
select different input methods.
An “input method”, when activated, allows easy entry of non-ASCII
characters using a standard keyboard.
The input method you choose will determine *which* non-ASCII characters
are more easily input. You select an input method when you know you're
going to be typing a bunch of text requiring easy access to characters
from a specific set.
There are of course input methods for the different writing systems of
the world, such as Sanskrit and Kanji.
But there are also input methods which expose the range of non-ASCII
characters useful for many Latin-writing-system languages.
The input method “rfc1345” lets you type a great many non-ASCII
characters as two-character sequences, chosen for mnemonic value. (The
mnemonic sequences are two characters, as listed in RFC 1345 [1].)
When I'm typing normal Latin-script text, I have the “rfc1345” input
method selected to give me access to lots of non-ASCII characters while
still typing alphabetic and punctuation characters as printed on the
keyboard.
For exmple, when I type the sequence ‘& . 3’, X receives the “…” (U+2026
HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS) character as my input. The sequence ‘& D G’ causes
X to receive the “°” (U+00B0 DEGREE SIGN) character as my input; the
sequence ‘& - M’ causes X to receive the “—” (U+2014 EM DASH). And so
on.
The “rfc1345” input method has the advantage that it's also implemented
(separately, AFAIK) as an Emacs input method, so you can get these
characters with the same mnemonic sequences even in a text-only console.
[0] https://wiki.debian.org/I18n/ibus
[1] http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1345.html
--
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`\ —Vroomfondel, _The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy_, Douglas |
_o__) Adams |
Ben Finney
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